Athens has more motorbikes per street than almost any city in Europe, and the drivers are used to them. Scooters thread through every gap, couriers weave between buses, and the whole basin between Mount Hymettus and the sea hums at a pitch that a visitor from the north needs a day to tune into. At the centre of the din the Acropolis stands on its limestone rock, the Parthenon's marble glowing gold at sunset, and it makes the whole mess of concrete around it seem like a footnote.
The monuments are old beyond easy comprehension. The Parthenon was built in the fifth century BC under Pericles, and the theatre of Dionysus beneath it saw the first performances of Sophocles and Euripides. Below the rock lies Plaka, a maze of lanes and stairways where tavernas spill onto the pavement, and the ancient Agora, where Socrates argued with his neighbours, is a quiet park of columns and olive trees. Nearly 700,000 people live in the municipality, and more than three million in the metropolitan area, so there is no shortage of fuel or food.
Escape is the key. The coast road south from the city runs along the Saronic Gulf, through the beach suburbs of Glyfada and Vouliagmeni, and on to Cape Sounion, where the ruined Temple of Poseidon stands on a cliff above the sea. The sunset there is famous, so do not be surprised by the crowds. North and west the mountains of Parnitha and Kithairon offer cooler air and winding roads, where pine woods and goat bells replace the horns of the city.
Summer in Athens is brutal, with temperatures that regularly pass forty degrees, so start early and rest at midday. The city is at its best in spring and autumn, when the air is clear and the light is soft. When night falls, roof terraces fill with people, and the floodlit Parthenon hangs in the sky above the lanes like a lantern.